


Claustrophobia

by equalopportunityobsessor



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Tony Whump, Tony and Natasha are totally bros, and dinosaurs, really that's the whole fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-03
Packaged: 2018-01-14 06:51:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1256875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equalopportunityobsessor/pseuds/equalopportunityobsessor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being crushed to death by the suit was really not on Tony's list of things to do today (or ever). Still, he doesn't think anyone else has ever been killed in a dinosaur attack, so it's a pretty cool way to die, all things considered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure this doesn't merit a "Graphic Descriptions of Violence" tag, but please, let me know if you disagree! This story is complete, I'm just editing the rest to within an inch of it's life before posting (I've seriously re-written the epilogue 4 times), so it should be up pretty quick!

This was officially the worst day of Tony Stark’s life; and it had started out pretty great. Generally speaking, he supposes, a Jurassic Park reenactment in Manhattan was not ideal. Still, the stegosaurus was undeniably cool. _And,_ Tony had wrestled a velociraptor. No joke. An honest to god velociraptor.

Then, he noticed the T-Rex. And the woman it was stalking. Hunting. Chasing. His missiles were gone, used up on the velociraptor pack. None of his smaller gage weapons were enough to do anything except annoy it further. He was too far away. He was the closest of his team. He started swearing even as he pushed everything into the thrusters. Every scrap of power available.

“Oh shit, oh shit oh shit oh shit!”

“Iron Man?! Report!” Steve or Natasha? Doesn’t matter, no time to answer.

Should have remembered to switch comm links though.

“Jarvis, don’t bother with shielding, they won’t matter if we’re not fast enough.”

Jarvis’ even-keeled ‘Yes, sir’ overlaps with a frantic shout with everyone on the team, because of course they all heard it.

The adrenalin speeds Tony’s rocket-fueled brain to supersonic speeds. He can’t even process the thoughts he’s having at the speed he’s having them. He doesn’t bother having Jarvis run the numbers; his brain is faster. He can’t grab the woman and carry them both free of the rampaging dinosaur’s trajectory. His best hope - only hope - is to knock her free, take the hit, and pray she doesn’t die in the collision.

His body _throbs_ with pain inside the suit, he’s pushing so hard. He absolutely has to time his shift from forward to reverse thrusters perfectly, to the millisecond, or they both die.

One of Hawkeye’s arrows goes spinning past him. Tony can see every rotation of the shaft.

“Oh shit, shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!”

He collides; he’s timed it perfectly. Sort of. He’d meant to hit the woman first, then get tangled in the tyrannosaurus’ legs, hopefully tripping it up and being kicked free in the process.

He hits the dinosaur first, which is okay, because now it’s off balance enough that they, tin man and mutant lizard combined, go careening around the woman. But this thing is not pleased, not at all, and instead of Tony rolling free, he’s targeted and trampled.

“Iron Man.. crrrkrkcrkkrkksssssssss... -an! Can you crrrkrkkrkrkknssssssssssssssss....”

Tony thinks he might be screaming. He hopes not, because hearing that over the comms gives people a headache like nobody’s business. The suit is collapsing beneath the behemoth pressure exerted by the clawed feet. Now, there are a lot of things that Tony doesn’t know (not actually that many things), like how one makes mutant dinosaur lizards (he’s sure he could figure it out). What he does know, is that this should not be happening to the suit. This should, absolutely, hurt. Couple of bruises, definitely, maybe a dislocated knee, or shoulder (he will never (probably never) get the joints as strong as he wants them). Still, his suit, his multi-million dollar gold-titanium (and a little bit of iron, because, seriously, _it’s in the name_ ) baby should not be _crumpling_ like a cheap tin can. It’s _Hulk proof._ Theoretically. It’s hard to convince Bruce to beat him up even when he’s Not-Bruce. Its 100% definitely Thor proof, though, so it follows that it should be dinosaur proof, right?

Wrong. Talons pierce his armour enough to ruin its structural integrity, and the brilliant alloy that’s saved his life so many times folds in on him like so much origami paper.

His arm is broken. Possibly a shoulder blade. Definitely some ribs. He really hopes the blinding pain in his femur is not what he thinks it is.

He’s also (almost certainly) screaming.

It’s not until the thing kicks him up that his screams become words.

Not more than 30 seconds can have passed.

“Steve! Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve...”

He's in it’s mouth. _Tony Stark is being chewed on by a fucking Tyrannosaurus Rex._

And there go a couple more ribs.

“Steve..... Ste... Steve.... “

Tony’s not speaking anymore by the time Hulk appears, 45 seconds after his initial collision. Hulk _t_ _ears the T-Rex apart_ , which would admittedly be way more awesome if Tony could have seen it from much farther away. Still, he’s appreciative.

“Thanks, buddy,” Tony pants, hoping something’s still intact enough for his words to be carried outside the suit. It’s a mistake though, because that’s the last of Tony’s air, and the filtration units of the suit are beyond gone, and Tony’s being suffocated by his own armour.

What a way to go.

Then, Steve is there, finally, it’s taken him an entire minute to get to Tony, but that’s okay because he’s here, lovely Steve, calm and rational and fucking fantastic in a crisis, there’s no one better, because the first thing Captain Wonderful does is rip his face plate off so he can breathe.

Which is just... Of course, he’s done it because he wants to see Tony’s face, determine if he’s still alive, but. That’s fine. It’s all fine. Air. Air is good. And oxygen. Tony loves oxygen.

“Tony! TONY! Can you speak? Don’t speak, just breathe oh God, Tony, you’re gonna be okay, why are you _such_ an _idiot...”_ Cap is babbling. Rather a lot. Tony just breathes. He’ll deal with Cap’s freak out later.

As soon as he calculates he has enough oxygen to articulate what he needs, he starts strategizing. He probably won’t die. He’s just going to hurt rather a lot, for a very long time.

“Cap... Shut up.” That takes so much more air than Tony thought it would, and his ribs are really not approving this whole ‘deep, heaving breaths plan’. Still. Cap shut up, so bonus points to Tony.

“Need you to get Natasha.... Thor... Don’t care... others.... _need those two_ ,” he instructs before his air is entirely gone. He pants and gasps and tries not to jerk with the effort of getting air.

_Step One: Minimize chest restrictio-_

“Steve!” pant pant pant “.... - the fuck are you going?”

Steve had been clambering up, moving away from Tony, but freezes as soon as Tony snaps at him.

“Widow and Thor?” he ventures, like maybe Tony isn’t a genius.

He’s alive enough to roll his eyes. “Do you or do you not have a comm unit?.... Idiot.” Pant pant pant....

Steve is too worried to even blush, but barks out orders like he wishes he could.

“Still have that StarkPhone I gave you?” Tony pants some more, beckons with his unbroken arm. Steve shakes his head though, and Tony is nearly swamped with pain again.

“Where would I carry it in this thin- TONY! What are you-” Tony has seized Steve by his collar and hauled him down so he can bark in his ear:

“Barton, I swear to GOD, if you tell me that you don’t have your StarkPhone with you right. now. My last act on this world will be to eviscerate you....” Pant pant pant pant. “Ask me if I’m bluffing.”

“Jesus, Stark,” Barton calls, ninja-ing down the building behind them, jumping the last ten or so feet to cut down on travel time, sprinting towards them. He throws himself into a barely controlled skid, slamming to a stop against Cap, who grunts but doesn’t move. The phone is in Tony’s broken hand a second later, and he _does not scream_ , but probably whimpers. Not Barton’s fault. It is his dominant hand.

“Okay, okay, I’m okay,” he pants, “Go if you need to, Barton. Dinosaur wrangle.” And then he’s gone. “Cap, you need to get this glove off,” Tony says, whipping his uninjured hand in Steve’s face. It takes a lot more pulling and tearing and brute force than Tony might have liked, but then it’s off and he can finally, _finally,_ hear Jarvis again. Whom he may have installed on all the Avenger’s phones... maybe.

“Jarvis, chest scan,” Tony orders, and then beams of light are dancing over the suit, trying to connect with the fried circuitry and measuring his temperature and heart rate. Tony feels a little bit bad, coding Jarvis to respond like a trained dog in serious situations: name, command, done. No room for snark or unnecessary contributions, which are some of the things Tony loves best about Jarvis.

“Information acquired, sir.”

“Probability of increased trauma to necessary functions with removal of chest plate.”

“47%, sir. 25% if coagulant agent remains intact and can be injected. Respiration will improve by 57%, sir.”

“I like those odds,” pant pant pant. Ah, Thor and Widow. Perfect. “Do it, Steve. Release catches are here, here and here. You’ll probably have to pull. A lot.” Pant pant pant. “Jarvis, analyze arc reactor.” The gaping, aching freezing feeling in the center of his chest is becoming disturbingly familiar. “Okay team. Go.”

Tony screams a lot and tries not to thrash, as Natasha’s clever fingers pry at his armor, tugging and freeing wires, while Steve and Thor's hands pry with inescapable strength. It hurts like a mother fucker. They don’t get to uncover his abdomen before he’s shaking too hard for further removal to be safe. But he can breathe. Holy crap, he can breathe.  

Tony slurps in air in great gulps, and then stops abruptly when this triggers a coughing fit and proceeds to pass out. Great. Lucky for him, Black Widow is extremely creative when the situation calls for it (it does) and is not so fond of Tony she’s going to be squeamish about hurting him. She might be his favourite right now.

He comes to gasping, vision white with pain but he’s present. This time, he remembers not to panic, and sucks air in through pursed lips, and breathes out through his nose. Everyone waits (not very) patiently for him to stop actively dying before the twitches start.

“Arc reactor scan complete, sir,” Jarvis says, and Tony hopes he’s the only one that can hear the worry in the AI’s otherwise montone programming. “Code 42.”

“Oh wow. Okay. Motherfucker,” Tony takes a moment, just a moment, he literally only counts to five, to just freak the fuck out. “Okay. This is great. Good job team, we are golden. This is not a problem. Thor,” breathe, breathe, breathe, “I need you to pay very close attention, and memorize everything I say to you, or everything in the workshop will do it’s best to kill you for messing with what I’m about to tell you to mess with.” Thor nods, very seriously, only looking marginally less like a golden retriever. “Good. Go into the workshop. The Inter-Galactic Coordinates we calculated to designate Asgard? Those are your entry code. Once you’re inside, go to the corner with the bots’ charging stations,” breathe breathe breathe, “And say ‘Dummy, Operation Parameters Emergency Code 42’. Dummy, You and Butterfingers will evacuate their charging sections, and stay out of your way,” breathe breathe breathe, “Don’t say any other words, or give them any other instructions, not even Jarvis, or they will do their best to remove you from the workshop entirely. Once they’re clear, lift the charging station, and remove the tile that’s right in the corner. Take the elevator down another level to the garage. Underneath the Mazarati is an empty place. Insert the tile. Underneath the yellow Porsche is another patch that looks like an empty tile. Punch out the plywood cover and leave your hand in the gel in there. It’s gonna feel weird, but it’s just a scanner. Bruce helped design it, so it’s way safer than something I made alone,” breathe breathe breathe, “When the scan is done, you’re going to see another compartment open somewhere on the walls of the garage. Inside will be a spare arc reactor. Grab it and bring it here, _as fast as you can_. You probably have five minutes before this one gives out and I go into cardiac arrest.” Hopefully, five minutes. He can hold out for just five more minutes…

Thor is already gone. Good. Wait, did he pass out again? Because Thor is _really_ gone, like, not even a speck in the sky gone.

“Okay. This all needs to come off,” Tony orders Cap and Natasha, grimacing as he does so. “When we replace the reactor, I’m going to jerk, and I’ll probably break something else if I seize in this thing.” Between him and Jarvis, they talk Natasha and Steve releasing him from the rest of the armour like a clam from its shell. Tony passes out again when they remove the shoulder piece and the dislocated joint slumps into his shattered scapula. They don’t revive him until he’s the rest of the way out. Perfect planning.

He wakes up when Thor craters to a stop right beside him, conscientiously free of lightning, gripping an arc reactor firmly in his hand.

Oh. Shit.

The thought bears repeating. Out loud.

“Oh, shit,” he gasps, but beckons for Thor and the reactor anyway. Natasha narrows her eyes at him, and then at it, and she’s freakishly clever and just… immensely terrifying, because she puts it together.

“Tony, that’s not one of the…” she trails off, logic taking over. They don’t have time for anything else.

Tony grimaces, really pissed off with his past self right now. They last thing he needs to deal with is a non-vibranium-cored reactor, but that’s what he’s got on hand right now. “Yeah. It is,” he takes a deep(ish) breath, “Hey, it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.”

Steve is frowning very earnestly, taking the reactor from Thor, who launches off again, answering what sounds like a call from Barton. “Tony, what’s wrong?”

“So very, very many things Cap. No time. Let’s do this.”

Natasha slides right up against him, and he grabs her elbow in a sudden flash of debilitating panic. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I just… I’m freaking out. This is okay though, I promise. This is fine, Pep- Can I call you Pepper? I’m definitely already thinking of you as Pepper in my head. Sorry,” Tony pants, trying to banish the image of Obi reaching into his chest when he looks at Natasha, trying to replace her with his favourite fierce redhead in the entire world.

“How bad is this going to make you, Tony,” Natasha says, but it’s softer than her usual tones, which is really helping with convincing him this is Pepper. Pepper is always irrationally concerned about his well-being. Ridiculous.

“At this point, I’ll take the heavy metal poisoning. This could look really, really bad.” Then Tony bows upwards against his will, only just remembering to let his limbs go with the movement of his chest. The light from the vibranium reactor flickers and dies. It’s gone. It’s gone. No no no no it can’t be gone -

Steve’s patience breaks, and he reaches instantly for the device, large hand with strong, ripping tearing clawing fingers spreading his ribs open to take his dead, mechanical heart -

Natasha slams him away from Tony, who can suddenly breathe, as soon as his vision is filled with flying red hair and delicate hands. Natasha is ruthlessly efficient, pulling out the arc reactor expertly, and Tony is reminded that she’s the only Avenger who had access to operational manual portion of the arc reactor plans, and is very very flattered she read it. Tony knew. He knows his own mind, his own neurosis. If it couldn’t be Pepper, it would have to be Natasha.

The new one is plugged in, and his heartbeat feels sluggish, painful, weighed down, as though all his blood vessels are turning to cement, his plasma to sludge. That was fine though, that was good, it was okay.

With a perfunctory click-hiisss, the reactor settles into the housing. Tony groans, feeling the old-familiar arrhythmia and tachycardia settling into his chest like one of Koch’s butterflies.

He gathers his determination, in shreds such as it is, to push one last coherent thought past the pain (he really is almost insensate with it at this point - his adrenaline is on it’s last leg). Maybe two thoughts.

“Sorry, Cap… Tasha was the only one that had access to the operation guide for the reactor…” he’d meant to say more, but it was gone now. Still, the vitriolic guilt and frustration pulsing off Cap subsided somewhat, so Tony decided to count this one as a win.

“Why?” Steve asked, suddenly, hurriedly, as though thinking he could use this opportunity to keep Tony talking.

The _bee-dur bee-dur bee-dur_ of sirens appeared in the distance.

Tony didn’t answer, so Tasha -Natasha did.

“Because it was only ever going to be me that could change it. Pepper’s the only one he lets near the thing, and if she can’t be here…”

“Needs to be here,” Tony supplies, quite intelligently he thinks, all things considered. “Need Pep. Need… her. Pepper… she… knows. Pepper…”

Pepper.

Pepper.

Pep-

  
  
  
  
  
Natasha and Steve watch as a macabre grid of black scrawls itself over Tony’s skin, highlighting the grotesque curvatures of his broken body. The screams of the sirens approaching aren’t nearly loud enough. 


	2. Chapter 2

_[The maudlin, unsynchronised beeping of multiple machines was becoming a far-too-familiar wake up call for Tony. Everytime he wakes up hearing them, he has to spend far too long thinking about whether he was actually trying to kill himself this time, or whether it had been - again - really, really just an accident. Really. The second situation happened far more often than the first. Even if only because Tony was a genius, and if he was going to off himself, odds were that he’d succeed._

_No one else seemed reassured by this, so he avoided mentioning it wherever possible._

_Once Tony manages to push past the obnoxious beeping, his awareness catalogues that distantly stiff feeling which means he’s really in a spectacular amount of pain, but they’ve swaddled his mind in layer after layer of pain medication._

_Tony hates the way it makes his brain all slow and normal, but he suspects that in this instance, he’d better be more appreciative of it._

_Still, Tony’s not only an old hat at injuries, as well as terrifying people, he’s done this whole rigamarole before, he is still quantifiably smarter than the national average. So, when he feels the drugs begin to pull him under again, he pushes his brain as hard as he can, feels it like a tangible movement in his cranium. The fingers of both his hands twitch once, then again, and -_

_Tony dimly computes the pressure around his left hand, far too long after Pepper must have squeezed, and he’s gone again.]_

  
  
  
  


Pepper sighs when Tony’s fingers twitch, and Steve can see her knuckles turn white with the pressure she returns. Steve watches as their two faces, one ash-grey with pain, the other with worry, relax into the same lines of reassured comfort at the same time. Steve aches fiercely, and not just because Tony is hurt. Beyond hurt. Pepper and Tony are… so familiar with each other they’ve become one person. TonyandPepper. Steve never misses Bucky as much as he does when he watches Tony trail Pepper around the penthouse like a puppy eager for affection, and watches Pepper indulge his latest harebrained scheme or listen patiently while he explains his latest invention with equations and jargon Pepper doesn't understand, but she listens to anyway because that’s what Tony wants to tell her. Or when Pepper storms into Avengers Tower, spoiling for fight, and watches Tony give her one. They yell at each other while the walls tremble and dust shakes loose from the ceiling, until Tony decides Pepper has had enough, and winds her back down to blissfully calm once more, in less than two minutes. It's kind of beautiful to watch.

Steve blinks suddenly, startled, because Pepper is standing, smoothing her dress and shrugging on her coat. It takes Steve far too long to understand that Pepper is preparing to leave. He frowns at her, not comprehending why she would leave now of all times, when Tony is just starting to show signs of waking. He would ask her, but forming sentences is an adventure he’s not prepared for.

Luckily, Pepper, like Tony, must be some kind of mind reader. She smiles at Steve, not at all intimidated by his disapproval - also rather like Tony.

“Tony will take forever to wake up while doused with painkillers, even if they’ve brought him out of the chemical coma. His brain needs to do its own system reboot, when it’s not suppressed by drugs. They make him too slow. Which he hates. He probably won’t be lucid enough to interact with his environment for at least eight hours, during which I intend to get at least four hours of sleep,” Pepper explains evenly, and Steve knows, no longer in the abstract way he knows all soldiers get hurt, that this is not Pepper’s first time keeping vigil over Tony’s body. Steve wonders how long it took for Pepper to be able to leave his bedside at all in the beginning, even to care for herself, and if the fact that she can bear to leave at all has anything to do with the fact that he saw her carrying several boxes out of the Tower a couple weeks ago. She hadn’t been around since, and Tony hadn’t left the lab for days at a time, which, admittedly, wasn’t an unusual turn of events, but still worrying.

Pepper brushes Tony’s hair off his forehead, cradling his skull with excruciating tenderness as she drops a kiss to his brow. She straightens once more, and presses the same elegant hand to Steve’s cheek as she passes. He allows his eyelids to fall, but keeps himself from leaning helplessly into her comfort with massive willpower. It would be too tempting to never let her leave.

“You’re a good man, Steve Rogers,” Pepper murmurs, and Steve almost flinches. Pepper is unfailingly polite and nice, but this is the first genuinely kind thing she has ever said to him. Steve had been starting to think she didn’t like him very much. “I’ll give Bruce an update.”

Bruce had decided that maybe being in the hospital, with the stress of relapses, and doctors and nurses constantly coming and going, and the incessant noise, was maybe not the best situation for someone with a hair-trigger like Banner’s. The team hadn't even pretended to disagree. He’d returned to the Tower, to the ‘(Most Likely Probably) Hulk-proof Bunker’ Tony had built there for him, on the condition that Natasha sneak him pictures of Tony’s chart whenever the doctors updated it so he could stay on top of Tony’s condition. She’d agreed readily - Steve suspected she didn’t trust the doctors anymore than Bruce did.

Pepper scoops up the case holding two arc reactors - the one damaged in the attack, and the emergency one that Thor had retrieved, the one that had given Tony a massive dose of blood poisoning on top of all his other injuries - and with one last hopeful look at the bed, clicks out of the room. Thor and Natasha had been sitting right outside the room instead of in it, Thor because he took up a bench entirely to himself, and Natasha because… well, Steve suspected she had placed herself on guard duty. Barton was giving the mission report to Coulson and Fury, or Steve is sure he would be terrorizing the staff by lurking in the vents. Steve cranes his head to watch as Thor stands to meet Pepper, and follows her out, acting as honour guard, though he isn’t entirely sure whether it’s for the reactors or for Pepper.

Natasha slinks into the room now that Pepper is gone, curling her entire body into the confines of the stiff plastic chair, resting her fingers lightly against Tony’s. There’s no response from him, but Natasha doesn’t seem to take this poorly. Perhaps his tangible presence is enough for her, though this confuses Steve.

“Don’t think so hard, Cap,” Natasha prods gently, “Just use your words.”

Steve clears his throat, realizing that he’s been scowling rather spectacularly at her. “I thought you didn’t like Stark? The two of you are always fighting.” He pauses, thinking about the team’s dynamics for a second before amending, “Differently than everyone else is always fighting.”

“It’s not fighting,” Natasha says calmly, not at all fazed by Steve’s accusations, “I’m just not a nice person, and neither is Tony. We’re… honest… at each other. It works for us. It’s comforting, to not have to hide from someone.”

“You don’t hide yourself from Barton,” Steve points out, knowing that, even though the relationship between those two is something he will never completely understand, he does know that much.

“Clint is different,” Natasha says dismissively, “He and I will always stubbornly believe the best about each other, no matter how many times we might prove the other wrong. That’s a different kind of reassuring, knowing I will never do anything so bad that Clint will stop fighting in my corner. Tony… understands that there is red in my ledger, that I will never, no matter how hard I try, wash away. Because his looks the same. Clint doesn’t empathise with that. Why would he? He’s always been the good guy.”

“Is that why Tony let you look at the plans for the arc reactor?” Steve asks, still a little bit miffed about that. He’d known there were things in Tony’s files he couldn’t see, but he assumed they were all weapons plans that SHIELD had helped him bury.

Natasha snorting. “It was really more of a directions manual, Steve, nothing even approximating plans. I doubt Stark even keeps plans for it, the information is probably entirely in his head. And no, that’s not the reason. Tony’s got more than his fair share of neuroses. Pepper’s the only one who’s ever been able to touch the thing, besides Tony himself and the doctor who installed it in his chest.” And hadn’t that been a revelation for Steve, staring in horror at Tony’s x-rays, seeing how the housing for the reactor sunk all the way into his chest, ending inches above his spine, his sternum was effectively gone, several of his upper ribs were cracked and twisted around it, all the bones riddled with air pockets. The doctors said that it reduced Tony’s lung capacity by about 30%, and they were amazed that Tony managed to keep up with any of them at all.

“I look the most like Pepper, out of any of us,” Natasha continued, “And I’m a woman. After Stane tried to kill him, I expect he’ll never let a man anywhere hear the thing. He won’t be able to avoid the association in his mind.”

Just like Steve would never wake up cold again without immediately thinking he had lost everything he loved, only to find the nightmare didn’t end when he warmed up.

Just like Barton would obsessively re-evaluate every shot he ever took, to make sure he was controlling his own decisions.

Just like Banner would never let himself have a family, just like Natasha would always be trying to break even, just like Thor would never give up on his brother…

“What a mess,” Steve groaned, slumping further in his chair. “How do we ever… get better?”

Natasha titled her head, staring at him like she didn’t understand. And maybe she didn’t. But she could try to explain.

(Sometimes, Natasha thinks to herself, we all forget how young he is, because he was born so long ago. How many years has he lived though, really?

‘How do you still think that you can fix all of this, all of us? You’re too good to live like this, Rogers.’ Is what she thinks.)

“Stare long enough into the abyss, and eventually, the abyss stares back into you.” Is what she says.

 


	3. Epilogue

_[Tony clawed his way up through layers of fog, steadily getting more and more desperate; He hated this, this cloying, choking feeling, like he was too stupid, too slow, too dead to run to fight to live. Ever since Afghanistan, he’d slammed to full wakefulness in seconds - whenever he bothered to sleep in the first place. Even in an alcohol induced semi-coma, he awoke far too quickly and violently._

_It seems a generous helping of hospital grade sedatives was the only thing that could keep him down, keep him sane and human, making waking up normal, and Tony didn’t like it, not at all._

_“Come on Tony, we know you’re there. Wake up.”_ Natasha.

_“Yeah, Tin Man, you’re not fooling anyone. Just open your eyes, okay? Steve’s frowny face is looking like it’s starting to hurt.”_ Clint.

_“Hey!”_ Steve.

_“What? Oh, come on, Steve, you know no one can resist the face! Tony especially can not say no to the face.”_ Clint, again. Asshole.

_Tony grinned once, flashing them his patented shit eating grin, before sinking back into the fog, which felt a little less like oily smoke and a little more like perfectly prepared bathwater.]_

 

 

 

It was really hard to milk your injuries for all they were worth when the Black Widow volunteers herself to be your physical therapist.

Tony tries to resist, but she (apparently) has all the proper training and a valid license (bullshit). And Pepper thought it was a good idea. Tony has a very long track record of not being able to resist things that Pepper thinks are ‘good ideas’.

(It’s probably as long as Pepper’s track record of being able to resist the things that _he_ thinks are ‘good ideas’.)

Which is how Tony ends up here, with Natasha staring at him, neither of them saying anything, or breaking eye contact. Tony feels like this is a lot harder for him than it is for her. He’s not good at not talking. But he does not want to do another five ‘reps’. He’s done a lot already, and this is boring.

He opens with mouth to express the depths of his displeasure. Natasha’s eyebrow twitches.

Tony does five more reps.

In fact, Tony does the entirety of the work-out (torture session) that Natasha had planned. And he doesn’t even get to yell at her. Creepy fucking ninjas.

And then, because having him pick up and then put down heavy things isn’t enough torture for his exceptional(ly bored brain), she then makes him do yoga. Like, a lot of yoga.

God, this sucks.

It’s at some point when Tony’s head is stuck into his crotch (which is really not cool) that he decided to ask, “So, uh, excepting this moment right here, where I actually hate your guts, you’re not being nearly as mean to me as you’re supposed to be.”

“Why am I supposed to be mean to you?” Natasha said placidly, though there was the tiniest bit of a smirk around her mouth, and her eyes were all indulgent and - ah hell, she was just humouring him, like you do with children who get ridiculous notions about microwaves who talk back and robots that can think… Actually, Tony sees this look a lot.

“You’re supposed to be mean to everyone who isn’t Clint. I think that asshole’s super power is annoying people into liking him. And Steve. Because there is a special place in Hell for people that are mean to Captain America. But everyone else, you don’t like,” Tony explains, very coherently he thinks, considering the current proximity of his face to his ass.

“I like you, Tony,” is all she says, looking way too amused for a woman who’s twisted herself into a remarkably apt imitation of a pretzel.

“That’s good, I prefer when creepy ninja assassins like me,” he remarks agreeably, and she snorts. “Why do you like me?”

Now, the sound she makes is much closer to one of disgust. “Tony, are we about to have a conversation about our feelings, here?”

“Oh, God,” Tony groaned. “Okay, if we can keep the feelings talk to under a minute, my seriously underdeveloped emotional maturity should hold out. Go.”

“I like you because you know what it means to have more deaths on your hands than you can ever make up for,” Natasha says quickly, doing them both a favour by not making eye contact with Tony while she says it. He freezes anyway. “And you don’t care - it doesn’t scare or worry you. Clint is similar, in that he doesn’t hold my past against me, because he thinks I can’t be like that again.”

“And I don’t?” Tony prods, even though he knows the answer.

“No, you don’t,” she replies (correctamundo, give the lady a prize), “Because you know that the ruthless killer is just a part of who I am, and I will never be free of that. You know that I can choose to be like that again, and that until I do, you have nothing to worry about. That’s why I like you. You know what it’s like to not be good with the power that you have.”

Tony grunts in agreement. That is not the kind of admission that is followed with words. Well, not any words that Tony knows. He’s not good at words that mean anything.

“Your turn, Stark,” Natasha teases. “We have twenty seconds left of emotional over-sharing time. Why do you like me?”

“You’re not going to get on my back about being bad at teamwork,” he replies immediately. “You’re used to working alone too.”

She snorts. “Not wrong.”

“I’m never wrong,” Tony says, before falling out of his own twisted-pretzel-bend. “Oww, God, that hurts. Can we be done for the day?”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for cliffhangers? I had (at one point) honestly considered just ending the story there... haha. 
> 
> '...one of Koch's butterflies' is a reference to the Spanish short story 'Mariposas de Koch' by Antonio de Benedetto (which in turn references the work of Robert Koch) about a man who has tuberculosis, but tries to deny it in favour of blaming his illness on butterflies who have flown into his mouth and taken up residence in his lungs. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think, I adore comments!


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